TheRoot.com’ Prints an Advertisement for Tavis Smiley.
TheRoot.com is the latest to conduct an interview advertisement for Tavis Smiley Enterprises.

The “interview” was a commercial for Smiley, as the interviewer did not bother to press Smiley on any of the issues people want to really hear explanations. Beyond the issues the tussle with Al Sharpton, but rather get to “the root” of the what Smiley feels his role is in the African American community, and Tavis Smiley’s own responsibility for his participation in the Wells Fargo sub-prime home loans events targeted for African American consumers. While Smiley is busy critiquing and complaining about other black public figures, he ignores his own issues. In addition, Smiley has yet to specify in interview after interview what specific policies should be created to improve (unstated) issues in African American Communities.

Like him or not Al Sharpton has created an black organization, and managed by hook or crook to become a relevant figure in both Democratic politics, African-American political leadership and gained enough of a position within the Whitehouse to have spots on various boards that are enacting policies. So, while Smiley is bitching and moaning about this that and the other unarticulated issues, Sharpton is busy working on reforming NCLB, and looking at numerous other issues.

Smiley is still caught between a role as both a talk show host and an activist, and manages to do a very poor job at both. As a talk show host Smiley tries to push a line of policy that has no constituency (unlike Hannity or Beck of Fox, which play issues to grassroots organizations) , and as an activist Smiley simply has no grass roots organization to actually implement whatever he says is the latest and greatest thing to do.

So, rather consistently Smiley is simply talking for Tavis Smiley Enterprises, and as a result it is no wonder the people who tend to stick-up for Mr. Smiley tend to be included in his events.

However, on theroot.com’s infomercial for Smiley’s book and feel good talk show tour:
[...]

Harold Ford Selfish Party Hack

(Ford isn’t even a partisan loyalist, he really is only concerned with having a position IN the establishment).

We all know politicians (and even their families) have monstrous egos. From the average do-gooder running for local office, up to the presidential races, all the entrants believe that they can do the job — or even worse are running for office for the publicity (Al Sharpton, Carol Mosely-Braun, Ron Paul, Mike Gravel).

My all time favorite is Alan Keyes, who has run for president in 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2008 as well as been a Republican nominee for senate (in various states) in 1988, 1992, and 2004.
[...]

I have basically gone point by point to deconstruct the gentleman’s argument, as it has been the lone argument in support of Tavis Smiley’s behavior that I have seen. In addition, my site was initially referred to by comments of his article in some fashion at theRoot.com.

I tried to contact McAllister via twitter to get a better idea of his thoughts… anyway

(I saw the article “http://www.theroot.com/views/tavis-smiley-was-right/” in my server logs).

In his rush to criticize where the president should assist black people, Lenny McAllister either blatantly ignores the faulty premise of Tavis Smiley’s statements this week or completely misunderstood the problems with Tavis Smiley’s strawman position.  Regardless of the reason behind Mr. McAllister’s support of Tavis Smiley, the end result is a position that doesn’t seem conservative at all — support of Tavis Smiley’s unclarified race-based “Black Agenda.”

Further McAllister’s critiques of what the Obama administration are misguided. While I believe PBO needs to be critiqued from all corners, from all ideologies and all people,  the critiques should be focused on well-thought out specific policies issues, or executive-level execution rather than idle wishes.  Among these idle wishes, policies need to be detailed that will help segments of African Americans as opposed to an undefined race-based “black agenda.” So, without further ado, I’ll examine McAllister’s piece at theRoot.com.

[...]

Actual commentary on air by Al Sharpton and Tavis Smiley is here:

Summary of Parts 1,2,3 Tavis Smiley’s Intitial, Al Sharptons Response and Smiley v. Sharpton.

Some other opinions I think are interesting to reference:
Dr. Boyce Watkins http://www.thegrio.com/opinion/sharpton-smiley-reveals-rift-in-black-leadership-split-over-obama.php
Roland Martin http://www.rolandsmartin.com/blog/index.php/2010/02/24/audio-roland-s-martin-tom-joyner-morning-show-commentary-02-24-10/

Point I: No monolithic black agenda.
Implicit in most of these pieces is the idea that African Americans have some pre-ordained unified agenda on the basis of shared created ethnicity.  Roland Martin actually does a good job of beginning to separate out different policies that could actually be implemented.
(Created ethnicity is a concept I’ve had since undergrad regarding Africans in America as descendants of slaves. As a result of shared experience, descendants of African slaves have essentially become a quasi ethnic group. Barack Obama importantly, by virtue of his absent father , became a member of this ethnic group.)

However, I have yet to see Tavis Smiley clearly explain what is included in his idea of a “black agenda.”  Since African Americans represent roughly 12% of the United States population, some 30 million plus people, any discussion of a unified agenda is a bit far-fetched.

What is more important perhaps, is dealing with discrete issues that affect different segments of black populations when separated by different demographic features.
Some groups might be the following:
African American males age 12-25
African American single parents 14-35
etc…

The lack of detail to the “black agenda” makes the whole idea difficult to take seriously.

[...]

I listened to all of Tavis Smiley’s initial morning show commentary, and it seemed disjointed and amorphous. It featured a strained metaphor of a choir rehearsal — although oddly including Farrakhan.

So, I could see how the show could cause a lot of trouble, given Smiley basically called out a lot of people that listeners would immediately recognize e.g. Ben Jealous, Al Sharpton and others; yet, Smiley did not do a good job of attributing direct quotable positions to those names. Worse, from the stand point of those mentioned, Smiley sort of placed them in a very awkward position of seeming to be against Smiley’s unspecified “Black Agenda.”

From the start there were several strikes against the Smiley characterization of “black leaders,” no clear “black agenda,” no specific quotes about people mentioned by name, and no real context of their leadership. Smiley just sort of went through a awkward statement casting himself on the side of Black America and basically “Al Sharpton, Ben Jealous, Charles Ogletree, Valerie Jarrett, Marc Morial, Dr. Dorothy Height” as some sort of villains — but “love-ing-ly.” ROTFLOL

Further, Smiley definitely characterizes the question “Is there a need for a black agenda,” without following up on specific outline of that black agenda on the air, while promoting the resolution of his issues against Al Sharpton and others to be decided at Smiley’s own venue.

Tavis Smiley basically said, “I’m on your side” while these guys — with all do respect “don’t care about black people” (In my Kayne voice–appropriate since the proposed site is in Chi-town).

Quotes from the Tavis Smiley Talks after the jump
[...]

I’ve come up with more Al Sharpton Versus Tavis Smiley via YourBlackWorld.com

I’m rating this as a MUST LISTEN!

More from Dr. Boyce Watkins @ YourBlackWorld.com

Nytimes Article that Sharpton discusses with Tavis Smiley is linked here:
Obama’s Approach on Race (Feb. 9)

Key Quote Smiley discusses is here:

The conventional wisdom about Mr. Obama is that he tries to duck the issue of race, but close advisers say he is acutely aware of his role as the first African-American president and is trying to heighten racial sensitivity in constructive ways.

Many black leaders view this as wise. The Rev. Al Sharpton, who is working with Mr. Obama to close the achievement gap in education, says the president is smart not to ballyhoo “a black agenda.”

Instead, Mr. Obama has been trying to shine a spotlight on the history that laid the foundation for his presidency, with events like Wednesday’s concert and the celebration of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, which offer a peek into his style.

More bits after the jump…

[...]

(An Update after the jump) Al Sharpton calls in to the Tom Joyner Morning show with some choice words for Tavis Smiley Al Sharpton with some concise words that expose the problems with Tavis Smiley’s crusade against Barack Obama <-audio here

Normally I am not the greatest Al Sharpton fan, as I spoke of in an earlier blog post “Is Al Sharpton a Black Leader?” However, I think Rev. Sharpton nailed Tavis Smiley’s showboating on racial discussions in America with some rather astute analysis of Smiley’s tactics. In my opinion, since Smiley refused to have Michelle Obama in the place of then Senator Barack Obama at the BSOTU (Black State of the Union), I have been attuned to Smiley’s methods of posturing in order to gain attention. Sharpton simply and cleverly eviscerates Smiley’s case.

[...]

Earlier this week I had a post critical of Al Sharpton’s place in a meeting with the Whitehouse regarding African-American unemployment figures.  Little did I know I would have an opportunity to post about a gentleman I really feel is a Republican contemporary of Al Sharpton — Newt Gringrich.

Both Gringrich and Sharpton sound perfectly reasonable in interviews and press conferences. Yet, from time to time each of them jump and scream about racism in completely irrational manner and later essentially refuse to apologize (Sotomayor, cartoons and perceived slights respectively).

Worse, when you actually look at the majority of ideas Gringrich or Sharpton has, they really dont’ make much sense — they tend to be the same old ideas repackaged. Additionally, in Gringrich’s case recently, they both get key important facts wrong (the shoe-bomber’s nationality).  Yet outsiders  consistently pander to the two gentlemen as though they are actually doing something important — other than raise money to pay themselves through their organizations and appear on television.

My guess is that both Gringrich and Sharpton owe their positions to their ability to get both positive and negative ratings on media programs — in the end it’s about the media drawing ratings.